It was already light when Ning Chen woke.

He did not wake on his own, because the first thing he did with his eyes open was hang over the side of the bed and throw up.

He very nearly filled the brass basin on the floor.

When he had finished, Ning Chen lay back with no life in his eyes.

He had drunk far too much last night. He had no idea how he had gotten back.

Knock, knock, knock!!!

A knocking came at the door.

“Come in!”

Ning Chen said it with no strength in his voice.

The door opened and Pan Yucheng walked in, and then covered his nose, knotting his brows, with a certain distaste in his eyes. The smell in the room was not good.

“Are you all right?”

Ning Chen said weakly, “Not deceased yet!”

Pan Yucheng went over, opened the window, then came back and poured Ning Chen a cup of water.

Ning Chen struggled up to sit against the head of the bed, took the cup and drank two mouthfuls.

The next second he was hanging over the head of the bed throwing up again.

“Old Pan, you’re a real son of a bitch!”

Ning Chen cursed him between heaves.

Pan Yucheng raised an eyebrow slightly. “And what’s that got to do with me?”

“Don’t play the fool with me. I’ve just worked it out… Last night you asked me how well I hold my liquor. I said about average… You bastard, you poured drink into me like your life depended on it. Don’t you tell me that wasn’t on purpose.”

The corner of Pan Yucheng’s mouth lifted slightly. “Just now catching on? That’s right. I did it on purpose.”

Ning Chen looked up and glared at him.

“Who told you to run your filthy mouth?”

Ning Chen smiled bitterly to himself. This one had a dark streak.

“Get up. I’ll help you over. Get something into you and your stomach will be easier!”

Ning Chen ate a little, and that did make him feel better.

Inwardly he paid his respects to every member of Pan Yucheng’s family.

It was close to noon before Ning Chen and the others set out.

He gave the two memorials he had written the night before to two scouts, to be carried secretly back to the capital… no need to hurry too much; two days ahead of the party would do.

Then, with Liang Jingwu watching them go, the army left Beilin Pass.

Everything about this trip back to the capital was kept simple.

Ning Chen brought only the King of the Left Court and Kong Yongchun.

The prisoners were all left at Beilin Pass under Liang Jingwu’s guard. There was no need to take them to the capital.

Kong Yongchun’s household were all held at Beilin Pass as well.

The cattle and sheep and warhorses were left behind too, naturally.

Once they were out of the city, Feng Qizheng and Chen Chong dropped back with a party of men, and two cartloads of gold and silver and jewels.

They would escort the gold and silver and jewels, and come into the capital behind Ning Chen.

Ning Chen lay flat along Diaochan’s back, arms and legs dangling with no strength in them, like a man who had been hollowed out, half alive and half dead.

“Little Chen, are you all right?”

Wu Tiezhu came up alongside and asked it anxiously.

In private he still called Ning Chen Little Chen.

Ning Chen shook his head weakly. “No. Not the least bit all right… All I want right now is a bed and a good long sleep.”

Then his eyes lit up all at once, fixed on the two prison carts.

One held the King of the Left Court.

One held Kong Yongchun.

From the moment Kong Yongchun first laid eyes on the King of the Left Court, he had gone to pieces, with the face of a man who had buried both his parents.

So Ning Chen had not been bluffing him. He really had taken the King of the Left Court alive.

Kong Yongchun knew he was a dead man this time, and his face went the color of dead ash.

“Stop a moment!”

Ning Chen called it out.

The army halted.

Ning Chen swung down off his horse, walked over, had them open the prison cart, hauled Kong Yongchun out of it, and got in himself.

The sight of it left every soldier there stunned.

“General Ning, what are you—”

Yuan Long and the rest stood with their mouths open, struck stupid.

Ning Chen pointed at Kong Yongchun and said with no strength in his voice, “Keep this one watched for me… Then carry on. Nobody is to disturb me. I’m going to get some sleep!”

Ning Chen simply lay down in the prison cart and went to sleep.

The soldiers looked at one another, unable to believe it… This was a prison cart. This was what you locked criminals in.

General Ning really was one of a kind, and no stickler for small points!

Ning Chen waved a hand. “Carry on. Nobody disturb me… or he gets thirty strokes of the rod!”

The army moved off again.

Ning Chen lay in the prison cart, sound asleep and snoring!

The King of the Left Court watched Ning Chen, and there was a great deal in his eyes… This boy left him afraid and full of respect at once.

If the Great Xuan ever turned out a few more monsters like this one, it would be a terrible thing.

Ning Chen slept straight through until afternoon.

He sat up, yawned, stretched… and his spirit had come back to him at last.

Yuan Long came closer. “General Ning, will you have something to eat and some water?”

“Give me the waterskin!”

Ning Chen took the waterskin and poured several long swallows down.

“General Ning, we’ve been going several hours. Should we stop and let the men rest a while?”

“You mean you haven’t rested this whole time?”

Yuan Long shook his head.

You say anybody who disturbs your sleep gets thirty strokes of the rod. Who’s going to dare wake you? All we can do is put our heads down and keep walking. Yuan Long said it inwardly.

“Pass the word. Rest, get something to eat, then back on the road.”

“Yes!”

The army halted.

Ning Chen jumped out of the prison cart.

“Yuan Long. Do we still have the snow camouflage we wore when we raided the North Royal Court?”

Yuan Long nodded. “We do! A lot of the men couldn’t bear to throw it out, so they’re carrying it with them.”

A month of running there and back, rolling on the ground every day, and that snow camouflage had long since gone to rags… but plenty of the soldiers had kept it anyway.

Ning Chen said, “Go and find me a few pieces and lay them in the prison cart… Those broken boards are too hard. Sleeping on them makes my back ache.”

“General Ning, you’re going to go on sleeping in the prison cart?”

Ning Chen said, smiling, “Isn’t it more comfortable than riding?”

“But you’re our commander in chief. It isn’t really fitting for you to stay in a prison cart, is it?”

“What’s unfitting about it? We’ve slept on snow mountains and open grassland. What’s so remarkable about sleeping in a prison cart? Put a prisoner in and you call it a prison cart. Put me in and you call it a command cart. Enough talk, go and be quick about it. That’s an order.”

Yuan Long could do nothing about it, and went off to obey.

“Wait. Bring Kong Yongchun over to me first!”

“Yes!”

Kong Yongchun was brought before Ning Chen.

Pan Yucheng came over as well.

Ning Chen narrowed his eyes at him. “Minister Kong. Would you like to talk?”

Kong Yongchun’s face was the color of dead ash, and he said nothing!

He knew he was a dead man this time!

Ning Chen asked, “That day at your residence I saw a small boy, five or six years old. What is he to you?”

Kong Yongchun said nothing.

Ning Chen said mildly, “You sold out to the enemy and betrayed the country. You will certainly lose your head. There’s no chance whatever that you live.”

“Minister Kong must know something about me? You must know how deep I stand in His Majesty’s favor.”

“But if Minister Kong will work with me, then given how His Majesty favors me, and given the great service of breaking the North Royal Court this time, asking His Majesty to pardon some of your people shouldn’t be difficult.”

“Minister Kong has done wrong, but what wrong has a child of a few years done? His Majesty is a merciful sovereign. If I speak, he will certainly give me that much face.”

Something came back into Kong Yongchun’s eyes, a little light in them. It was hope.

Ning Chen went on: “One man’s wrong — yours, Minister Kong — and it takes down nine degrees of kin. Not one drop of your blood left in the world… And when you go down below, what face will you have to meet the ancestors of your Kong line?”

“The only man who can keep the incense burning for your house of Kong is me… As for that man behind you, once he learns you’ve bungled it and that it may reach him, you’ll be lucky if he doesn’t kill your whole family.”

“Minister Kong had better think it over. The road is long. Take your time thinking, Minister Kong. Will you work with me or won’t you? When you’ve decided, come find me any time.”

Ning Chen finished and, without giving Kong Yongchun the chance to open his mouth, had him taken away.

Pan Yucheng looked at Ning Chen. “You mean to trade your own war merit for the lives of some of the Kong family?”

Ning Chen only smiled.

Pan Yucheng went on: “Yes! The children are innocent. What wrong have they done?”

Ning Chen turned his head and looked at him. “Do you know what it was I saw that day?”

“What?”

Ning Chen said, “That day I went to call on Kong Yongchun and didn’t find him in… On the way out I heard screaming and crying from inside the courtyard, so I climbed up on the wall, and saw something I won’t forget.”

“Several serving girls were crawling on the ground, barking like dogs… and a boy of five or six with a rattan cane in his hand was laying into them, hard, over and over, and letting out a shrill laugh while he did it.”

“And off to one side several richly dressed women were laughing, and now and then clapping and cheering the boy on.”

“Old Pan, some children are children and some children are devils. They’re born rotten. What’s in the bone can’t be changed.”

“I really will ask His Majesty to pardon a portion of them, but only the serving girls and the servants. There will not be one single member of the Kong family among them.”

Ning Chen finished, stood up and stretched. “I’m hungry. Let’s go eat!”

Pan Yucheng watched him go and turned it over, and then smiled to himself without a sound.

Five days later the army took ship at Chenzhou.

Going back they were against the current, so it would run two or three days slower than the trip out.

Ning Chen was bored with nothing to do, and fished every day with a rod he had made himself.

That day he finally landed a fish, and a good big one at that.

Ning Chen was delighted. He had just gotten his hands on it when Yuan Long came hurrying up to report that Kong Yongchun was shouting to see him.

Ning Chen’s attention wandered for a second. The fish’s tail slapped him hard across the wrist, and then it slid out of his hands, dropped into the water and was gone.

Rubbing the wrist the tail had stung, he was furious… Damn it, run if you’re going to run, but you gave me a hell of a smack on the way out.

Seeing Yuan Long trying not to laugh made Ning Chen angrier still.

“This is your fault. It took me forever to land that fish, and you owe me for it.” Ning Chen threw the rod to him. “You fish. If you don’t catch one, you can jump in and bite the hook yourself.”

Yuan Long was struck stupid!

Ning Chen came to the room where Kong Yongchun was held.

“You wanted me?”

Kong Yongchun stared at Ning Chen. “If I work with you, can you really keep some of my people alive?”

Ning Chen said mildly, “I’ll swear to it. If I can’t keep some of the people of your Army Supervisor’s residence alive, may heaven strike me with five thunderbolts and may I die badly!”

Kong Yongchun fell silent.

After a while he nodded, heavily. “All right. I believe you!”

Ning Chen smiled coldly. “Besides believing me, is there another road open to you? Who else can you count on? In the situation you’re in now, who besides me can help you?”

Kong Yongchun set his teeth and looked at Ning Chen. “The man who put me up to harming you is the Left Chancellor. Getting those seven Great Xuan commanders killed was also the Left Chancellor’s instruction to me.”

Ning Chen’s face stayed calm, and he said coolly, “I guessed that long ago. Tell me something I don’t know… Such as what proof there is. Something that can testify against the Left Chancellor.”

“Secret letters… The secret letters the Left Chancellor sent me. I kept all of them.”

Ning Chen’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Where are the letters?”

“In the capital!”

Ning Chen looked at him with open suspicion.

Kong Yongchun said, “Those letters were supposed to be read and burned, but I kept my wits about me. What the Left Chancellor had me do were all capital crimes, selling out to the enemy and betraying the country… I knew too much, and I was afraid that one day the Left Chancellor would kill me to close my mouth.”

“So I had the letters carried secretly to the capital… If anything ever happened to me, they would be delivered to the Inspectorate.”

“I just never thought the Left Chancellor wouldn’t touch me, and that I’d end up in your hands instead.”

Ning Chen laughed coldly to himself. Every damned one of them was an old fox.

“Where in the capital are the letters?”

Kong Yongchun hesitated, then said, “The West Market in the Outer City. The Liu family cloth shop. The man who keeps it is my steward’s son, Liu Chuanzu!”

Ning Chen nodded slightly, then asked, “Are those letters in the Left Chancellor’s own hand?”

Kong Yongchun shook his head. “No! The man who wrote them is Steward Ding of the chancellor’s residence.”

Ning Chen’s face darkened a little. “Then those letters aren’t worth a damn. The Left Chancellor can put the whole thing on Steward Ding.”

Everything he had was supporting evidence. He had nothing that could testify against the Left Chancellor directly.

Ning Chen made himself patient. “Do you have any other proof?”

Kong Yongchun shook his head.

Seeing the look on Ning Chen’s face, Kong Yongchun said quickly, “I am the Left Chancellor’s protégé. I can testify against the Left Chancellor to his face.”

(End of Chapter 168)